Monday, June 29, 2009

Due to a mix up The Nobody will ship a week late and will now be in bookstores July 7 and Comic Book Stores July 8. I will however be signing at Comics And More at Danforth and Greenwood (steps from the Greenwood subway stop) in Toronto THURDSAY JULY 2, between 4-6 and I will have advance copies of THE NOBODY for sale a week early! I will also have a limited edition Nobody print, free for anyone who wants one and some other freebies, original artwork etc.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

CBC's Book Club with Hannah Sung is running a week long look at graphic novels with a focus on Jillian and Mariko Tamaki's amazing SKIM. They interviewed me as well, and there is even a contest to win signed copies of some of my books!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The collected edition of my trilogy of graphic novels "Essex County" (Tales From The Farm, Ghost Stories, The Country Nurse) will be available in both hardcover and softcover editions later this summer.

This new complete edition will not only reprint the complete trilogy, along with two new short stories and 50-pages of new bonus material, it also features a brand new introduction by oneof my cartooning heroes DARWYN COOKE!

Here is an excerpt from Darwyn's intro...

"It would seem Jeff Lemire is a haunted man. I don't mean this in any melodramatic, ectoplasmic sense. I refer to a more serious condition common amongst many great storytellers. His head and his heart seem to carry remembrances of the quiet beats in which people stand revealed. With a casual grace that would make the late Raymond Carver envious, Lemire's stories build out of innocuous and seemingly unconnected moments that gather and gain weight when viewed in a cumulative light. His instinct for where to start and end a scene and where to place that scene within the larger tapestry is sublime.

The ease with which Essex County flows from past to present to future to fantasy shows the kind of mastery that most cartoonists are incapable of after a lifetime of practice. While Essex County is laced with sentiment, it all seems natural and hard earned. Lemire has either cannily or intuitively avoided the pitfall of many far more celebrated cartoonists;the pitfall of self pity. Many of our best cartoonists have a conflated sense of their own suffering and isolation, and large passages of their work seem engineered to give this type of self absorption a heroic context. Lemire's characters weather their lives with resolution and quiet despair. We feel for them because of Lemire's talent for revealing their inner strength, not their outer weakness.

In Tales from the Farm, our cast are all people trapped in a life they didn't ask for or expect. Lester, Kenny and Jimmy are all caught in a stasis brought about by external forces they couldn't forsee or control. It seems their only substantive way forward is to endure and abide. The road out of the woods is laid stone by quiet stone. Lemire's approach is so devoid of melodrama that when he does go all in we're taken aback, and shopworn cliches take on a heartbreaking freshness. The life of Vince in Ghost Stories is so spartanly laid before us that when he passes we expect yet another moment of quiet despair. When off panel tapping spurs us to turn the page we see Lemire has dove in with both feet. Vince's team stands before us, offering that most Canadian sign of masculine respect; the quiet clicking of sticks on the ice. This moment of melodrama is timed so perfectly it sneaks past our cynicism and floods our hearts with something we forgot we had inside us."To read the rest of the intro you'll have to buy the book! It is in the current Previews catalog so ask your local comic shop or book store, or CLICK HERE FOR ORDERING INFO AND DETAILS.

Friday, June 5, 2009

IN THE CURRENT PREVIEWS CATALOG:

"Essex County is a tremendous achievement ... This heartfelt piece of graphic literature surpasses its form to stand as an enduring example of the finest in Canadian literature." -- from the introduction by Darwyn Cooke

"The subtle inter-weaving of Jeff Lemire'sEssex County Trilogy is brilliant and constantly surprising. The cumulative impact left a lump in my throat." -- Jeff Smith, creator of Bone and RASL

"This is the comics medium at its best." -- Booklist (from one of three starred reviews)

Winner of the 2008 Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist

Nominated for the 2007 Ignatz Awards, the 2008 Harvey Awards, and two 2008 Eisner Awards

Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What could change two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the work of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception?

Critically-acclaimed cartoonist Jeff Lemire pays tribute to his roots with Essex County, an award-winning trilogy of graphic novels set in an imaginary version of the Ontario county where he was born. In Essex County, Lemire crafts an intimate study of one community through the years, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation. With the lush, expressive inking of a young artist at the height of his powers, Lemire draws us in and sets us free.

This new edition collects the complete Essex County trilogy (Tales from the Farm, Ghost Stories, and The Country Nurse) in one deluxe volume! Also included are over 50 pages of previously unpublished material, including sketches, promotional art, and two new stories. -- A Softcover Graphic Novel with French Flaps, 512 pages, 6 1/2" x 9", Young Adult (13+), Diamond: JUN091069, ISBN 978-1-60309-038-4, $29.95